Why Hurricane Irene Is a Perfect Storm for Online Scammers

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As East Coasters prepare for Hurricane Irene, much of the world,
especially those in its path, is glued to the computer looking
for up-to-the-minute weather reports and evacuation information.

Naturally, any major event that draws people to their computers
also spurs online scammers into action.

Luckily, cybercriminals' tactics aren't so powerful if you know
what to look for. Here are some tips to avoid getting taken for a
ride by the wave of storm scams.

Don't automatically trust your "friends"

It sounds counterintuitive, especially when people are looking
for real-time updates about what is now a Category 3 hurricane.
But scammers have proven time and time again that
hijacking a friend's Facebook or Twitter profile is an easy
way to spread malware, Trojans or other nasty computer curses.

"The implicit trust relationship of social networks is risky,"
Jonathan Gossels, president and CEO of the Massachusetts-based
security firm SystemExperts, told SecurityNewsDaily.

Just because one of your social networking contacts send you a
message or a link, it does not mean that link is safe. Look at
what happened last week to the Los Angeles rapper
The Game : someone hacked into his Twitter account and posted
a message telling his nearly 600,000 followers to call a certain
phone number for the chance to become his intern.

It turned out the phone number belonged to the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department, which became so inundated that its officers
were unable to respond to emergency calls for the next three
days.

The moral: dig a little deeper. Don't blindly click on links,
especially
shortened URLs, about Hurricane Irene. Seek out legitimate
sources such as The Weather Channel or reputable major
newspapers.

A picture is worth 1,000 scams

After the devastating March earthquake and Tsunami in Japan,
online crooks sprung into action with a variety of attacks, but
one in particular stood out. It was a message — circulated around
Facebook, of course — that claimed to have YouTube footage of a
tsunami wave launching a
whale into a building.

In hindsight, it sounds ridiculous, but at the time the whole
world was attached to the Internet, and the scam was able to lure
victims into filling out surveys in order to see the footage.
There was no video, of course, and any info entered into the
survey became the criminals' property.

Hurricane Irene will undoubtedly draw out every newscaster and
intrepid weatherman along the eastern seaboard for exclusive
shots of the storm's wind surges and whatever flooding or other
damage may occur. Again, the advice is simple: stick to reputable
news sources, and if a picture or video seems too good (or
too shocking ) too be true, it almost always is.

Watch where you donate

This last bit of advice is to counter perhaps the most soulless
of all online criminals, those that prey on people's sympathy and
generosity to make a quick buck.

After major natural disasters like the earthquakes in Japan and
New Zealand this year, fraudsters set up
fake donation websites. They were almost identical spoofs of
a Red Cross site, except whoever set them up pocketed your
heartfelt gift.

If you receive an unsolicited email in the aftermath of Hurricane
Irene asking you to donate to help victims or the cleanup effort,
be suspicious.

"Legit charities won't be reaching out to you online," Gossels
said. "Never click through links from people or organizations you
don't know."

As a backup plan to support what should be your new online
smarts, make sure you keep your computer updated with
anti-virus software and anti-malware software, which can
detect these threats so you never have to deal with them.